Coordinated delivery services

Logistics services can either be performed in-house or outsourced to service providers (see also "Supply Chain Management", Management & Quality No. 3, 2017, p. 28). In today's world, Big Data and interconnectedness of services play an increasingly important role. For example, strategies such as "just-in-time production" or "same-day delivery", the efficient and punctual delivery of vital products and goods, are now indispensable.

Coordinated management of logistics services is crucial for delivery - and for correct performance. However, fleet management means more than controlling deliveries or allocating quantities that cover distances and conveyor belts at the right time. Real-time information and M2M communication facilitate efficient deliveries as well as the smallest service and contract changes.

Finally, ever finer algo-rithms help to optimize complex tours as well as expensive resources.

M2M information
Freight forwarders, courier services, suppliers, technicians - they all have to provide fast and reliable services like a Sisyphus schaefferi (Latin: Matter pill-roller). But how can processes and workflows be staggered and simplified, and costs controlled - usually on a supra-regional level? Today, fleet management should work for small and medium-sized businesses as well as for large corporations.

Machine-to-machine communication (M2M) can do much more than manage and network GPS data. M2M offers digital, scaled solutions for every operation that improve supply chain management. For example, intelligent systems can help

"When the algorithm replaces the rapport."

In addition, the data transmitted can be used to reduce costs in the supply chain or to submit offers and customs letters from the road. In any case, it is indispensable for forwarding agents to be able to book delays and write-offs.

A balanced M2M scorecard model, more or less a digital report sheet, helps all those involved to analyse appropriate information. Sensors installed in vehicles and integral fleet management software provide information about bottlenecks, traffic jams, detours or weather conditions. Even real-time information on the load, such as liquid goods or dangerous goods, and the position of a transporter can be retrieved by sensors and cameras.

Example UPS
The fact that individual drivers call nervously because they are stuck in traffic and the control center then has to inform the customer about delays is a thing of the past. Today, the vehicles themselves report where they are via GPS. However, UPS has equipped its vehicles with a variety of sensors as well as WLAN modules. This made it possible to register all activities and delays in terms of data and to research routes ad hoc.

For example, an algorithm was developed that calculated routes with fewer turns and fewer intersections based on all the data read in. Intersections were avoided by UPS drivers because they are the site of a higher than average number of traffic accidents and "braking and starting consume fuel and time. As a result, UPS was not only able to improve safety, but also shortened routes traveled in the U.S. by 30 million miles in 2011.

In the meantime, the international group has optimized further services and routes. In addition to the time savings, "eleven million liters of fuel and 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide" were already saved five years ago (Mayer, Schönberger, Cukier 2013).

In addition, UPS uses sensor data from the vehicles themselves to detect deviations in the individual component. In this way, faults in the vehicle components can be predicted.

Better utilization
Vehicles are serviced in good time before damage actually occurs. This avoids delays in deliveries as well as additional organisational effort that would arise from an unforeseen incident (source: "Digitales Dialogmarketing: Grundlagen, Strategien, Instrumente" by Heinrich Holland).

Further costs can be saved by no longer replacing vehicle parts as a precaution according to the maintenance plan - but only when they provide "conspicuous" data (Mayer, Schönberger, Cu kier 2013, p. 59).

With algorithms, wear and tear and consumption can be reduced and expenses analysed in addition to the otherwise already scarce resources. For large truck fleets, this is a decisive advantage, but can smaller companies also afford M2M in fleet management? The dispatchers at the company Dederichs Industriebedarf (around 50 employees), for example, rely on M2M communication with the "Mobil Zeit" software from MobilZeit GmbH.

For a delivery service like Dederichs, it is vital that sensitive spare parts reach the customer absolutely on time. The above software offers space and time-independent solutions.

Secure processes
At the center of a conference of the Institute of Vehicle Technology and Mobility, the IFM 2016, 240 industry representatives discussed progress in the context of "autonomous driving". Jon McNeill, President Global Sales & Service of Tesla, primarily emphasized safety points in his speech on "Consequences for Fleet Owners". The speaker opined,

"At UPS, maintenance only becomes necessary when there is 'conspicuous' data."

that a total of 1.2 million driven car pilot tests prove that autonomous driving will help prevent traffic accidents in the future. An interesting thesis.

McNeill: "All the media talks about petty accidents of self-driving cars, nobody says a word about thousands of accidents happening somewhere on the same day."

In any case, the logistics industry should take into account people themselves and accidents caused in general in order to be able to operate more accident-free. Tesla is not alone in developing intelligent cloud solutions for an era in which vehicles, not people, correspond with each other at all times and show consideration for each other:

"Then an algorithm replaces the Poli-zeirapport". - But not the question of who assumes what liability in the event of a fender bender. Today, M2M communication already integrates a theft warning system. This means that a supplier would notice immediately if a networked vehicle exhibited any deviations. The M2M system could even trigger an alarm silently. This is reassuring for all fleet managers who sometimes leave their vehicles unattended.